Nokia N9

Nokia reportedly has one further MeeGo device in the pipeline, set to follow the Nokia N9. The Nokia MeeGo developer team is still active, NetbookNews' source inside the company tells them, and preparing at least one more device running the open-source OS, though it's unclear whether that will be another smartphone or a MeeGo-based tablet.

The Nokia N9 has been dated for its Swiss release, with carrier Orange confirming that the MeeGo smartphone is expected to go on sale on September 19. Pricing for the 3.9-inch touchscreen handset is yet to be announced, though the assumption is that it will be reasonably affordable on-contract.

Nokia's N9 has crossed the FCC and, as is traditional, splayed its guts for all to see. Unsurprisingly, Nokia has had to do a lot of work to get everything to fit inside its narrow polocarbonate casing, though the N9 still gets pentaband WCDMA connectivity when rivals are still bumbling along with support for a mere two or three bands.

Nokia has released a series of new videos squeezing adverts for the N9 into a mere nine seconds, pushing the idea of the MeeGo handset being particularly convenient and easy to use. The six clips - which you can see after the cut - give a very brief view of Swype, browsing, social media, maps, the camera, and the N9's "all-screen design."

Nokia has confirmed it plans to support the MeeGo-based N9 "for years" and that the company's software engineers have "several SW updates" planned for the niche handset. Nokia head of portfolio management, Klas Ström, took to Twitter to assuage concerns over the N9's longevity, with would-be buyers seemingly keen to pick up the smartphone but wary of Nokia's change of allegiance to Windows Phone.

I am not a Nokia fan at all. The only Nokia device I have ever owned was a free phone a carrier gave me years, and years ago with one of my first wireless plans. I am still seeing little that would talk me out of my iPhone or an Android device for a Nokia today. What I will say is Nokia knows how to make a camera phone. The camera on my iPhone sucks to the point that I only use it in a pinch and then the photos are just not very high quality.

New hope for the Nokia and Microsoft partnership came this week with the unveiling of the N9 MeeGo handset and the Windows Phone Mango version of it dubbed the "Sea Ray." The N950 sports a similar styling but will have a larger screen, slide-out QWERTY keyboard, and be deemed a developer-only device. All in all, a positive week in developments for Nokia, but not so much for RIM. The BlackBerry maker began layoffs this week and further cut back sales estimates of the PlayBook tablet.

Back when the Nokia N950 cleared the FCC in mid-May, confidentiality requests meant we couldn't see the guts of what we now know to be the MeeGo developers version of the Nokia N9. With all those details official, however, the full listing has opened up and revealed the teardown shots of what's going on inside the N950. Among the entrails, confirmation that the N950's camera is indeed a 12-megapixel unit, rather than the 8-megapixels in the N9.

Nokia has reportedly turned to Compal Electronics to manufacture its first wave of Windows Phone handsets, rather than building them in-house at its own facilities. According to DigiTimes' sources, Compal has inked an agreement with Microsoft to produce its own Windows Phones - joining recent additions Acer, ZTE and Fujitsu - as a licensee, and will also be looking to produce Acer's line-up.

A Nokia prototype apparently running Android on N9 hardware has been caught in the wild, though it's unclear whether the handset is an unofficial hack or something from the Finn's test labs dating back to when arguments between adopting Windows Phone or Android still raged. Posted at the Weibo forums (1, 2; registration required), the shots follow Nokia CEO Stephen Elop demonstrating a Windows Phone version of the N9 codenamed "Sea Ray" yesterday